Page 16 of The Forbidden Dragon King (Shadow Kings #1)

He shakes his head. “I need to sleep. I should be bunking down now but I needed to… I mean, I couldn’t without… I wanted to check that you were all right. Anyway, you should rest too and sleep off this ill-advised morning drinking session. You’ll be sober when you awake. May I help you?”

I turn to him, pushing myself up onto my tiptoes to loop my arms around his neck.

When he flinches, I stare up at his face in confusion.

“I’m not trying to steal your pretty dagger again,” I say.

“ Again? ” He looks down at me, cooly. “So, you admit that you did before.”

“Don’t interrogate drunk wolf shifters. It should be a rule or something.”

“I am the King. I could make it one.”

“Okay.”

I tease the wet hair at the base of Aurelius’ neck, which is like silk.

It’s strange to finally touch him; he’s hard and muscled. For the last few days, he’s felt like a dancing shadow. I half imagined that I may have dreamed him .

After the confused fantasies in my mind, I needed to be sure.

“I’m happy that you’re back,” I whisper. “I was worried about you, hoping that you weren’t injured.”

Now, I understand why people drink. It lets you say things that you wouldn’t have the courage to otherwise.

I’m reckless most of the time but not with my heart. I tried confessing once with Bard, and he threw it back in my face, mocking me as unworthy.

Then he rejected me.

Please, don’t laugh at me.

“Did you pray to the Shadow Gods for me?” Aurelius is holding himself very still.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” I pull back to trace his sharp cheekbone, drying it with the tip of my finger. “You’re pretty.”

Startled, Aurelius’ gaze lowers to mine. “Am I?”

This close, I can see the tawny flecks in his eyes and the length of his golden lashes.

“Hmm.” I lean against his armor. “As pretty as Daire is.”

I yelp in shock, when Aurelius peels me off him and pushes me down onto my nest. I land on my face in the cushions, before squirming around on my back to get comfortable.

“That fae is a trickster.” Aurelius crosses his arms.

“I know,” I say, merrily.

“A rogue.”

“I know.”

“He has no knot. ”

“I…” I blink. “Wait, is that true? None of the stories mention that. His charm probably makes up for it.”

Aurelius narrows his eyes. “To be clear, I have no idea. I don’t make it a habit of examining my prisoner’s cocks. And I would say that my new pet has less charm and more flirtatious sass.”

I watch Aurelius carefully, as he rounds the bed to kneel in front of the silver shrine. “Daire is your prisoner…?”

Well, that’s sobered me up.

“I told you that I’d bring back my old foe leashed and in a cage. He’s not King Daire anymore. He’s no more than my pet, Kit. If you want him to live, then you’ll learn to call him that.”

“I won’t.”

Aurelius’ eyes flash, as he glances over his shoulder at me. His pheromones become so dominant that I shrink back, using a cushion as a barrier.

Instinctively, I increase my own pheromones to calm him.

“It’s called a command from your King, pet.

You will follow it because the only fae who will survive Bael will be those who are seen to be no longer a threat to my power.

The only two people in this world who could topple my throne are Kit and Lanlin.

So, you’ll remember that Kit must appear to have been declawed. ”

I swallow.

Is he actually helping Daire?

I nod.

Aurelius turns back to the shrine, placing his hand gently on top of the crown, stroking it. “Also, I have made a deal with him. He has agreed to serve me.”

My eyes widen. “Fuck off.”

I slam my hand over my mouth.

Maybe I’m no longer so keen on wine.

Slowly, Aurelius turns around to face me, arching his eyebrow. “By the time that we return to the capital in a week, pet, I will also need to have taught you how to talk to me in public. Amusing as I personally find it to have you tell me to fuck off, the Council will find it less so.”

I drag my hand away from my face. “You want to pull out my fangs.”

“Never, my Wild Wolf. I want to teach you how to hide those fangs.”

I consider him.

He appears to mean it.

I have enough practice at hiding my fangs, after growing up in the Moon Court. Yet I don’t want to live like that again.

A thought strikes me that makes me scan Aurelius’ cool expression.

Is that what he’s doing right now? Has been doing from the start?

What is he hiding behind his mask?

An unexpected, quiet intimacy falls between us, as he continues to rest his hand on the silver crown.

My chest is tight. I’m almost too frightened to ask questions and spoil this quiet bubble that’s been created.

Yet I can’t wait a moment longer .

“What happened?” My breathing becomes ragged. “On your campaign against the Shadow Fae?”

Aurelius’ expression becomes troubled, as if he’s weighed down and desperate to talk to someone.

“Why not? You’re hardly likely to remember this when you wake up.

Will you remember anything that we’ve spoken about?

I hope you remember that you called me pretty .

” I blush. “Uncle Max came up with a sacrilegious plan to ambush the fae on the night of one of their most sacred rites. We ambushed them in a grove, into which we should never have trespassed. The Council approved the plan. If I had stood against any part of it, then I would now be the one in a cage.”

“I don’t understand.”

Aurelius’ gaze is distant. “After all, does it matter, which one of us ended up bound? This isn’t either of our war.

Our parents started it, and my brother valiantly fought it for years.

What matters is that the Second Fae War is finally over.

I can start working on creating stability and peace, rather than wreaking nothing but death.

As soon as I have also crushed the vampires, then the next generation won’t need to lose their childhoods to a military academy like I did. ”

“Were you close to your brother? The one whose shrine that is?”

I never had siblings.

Sometimes, I would look at sisters in the Moon Court, and I would try to imagine what it would feel like to have a bond like that. It didn’t matter whether they were poor Omegas or wealthy Alphas. They always seemed just as devoted to each other.

“Tarq was my hero.” Aurelius bows his head. “He was good in a way that I can never be.”

I glance at the shrine, painfully reminded of the barrows. “I wish that I had somewhere to honor and pray for my parents.”

Aurelius lifts his head; his eyes glow in the shadows as they meet mine. “I’ll carve you a shrine for them if you like.”

My breath catches.

Why does he keep doing this? Making these kind gestures — giving me my first nest, the gift of the bracelet to cover my broken bond scar, and now, offering to create a shrine for my parents?

He’s making it very hard to abandon him.

My eyes burn. “They’re not… I mean, they were part of the Orm Massacre. But I never had anywhere but a communal barrow to grieve at. I don’t even know their names.”

“A shrine doesn’t need names, if you know who it’s for in your heart.” Aurelius cocks his head. “The Bloods also killed my brother. It was Tarq who raised me like a father.”

For a long moment, we’re caught in the cocoon of our joint grief.

“Do you hate the vampires?” Aurelius asks, quietly. “The monsters who took away your parents?”

I nod .

He leans closer, and dizzy on the wine, I’m even more intoxicated by his scent.

What would it feel like to kiss him?

Right. Now.

“What if,” Aurelius lays his hand lightly over mine, and I shiver as his thumb strokes in light circles, “I could offer you something more than a shrine to the dead? What if I could offer you a way to take revenge on the Bloods for orphaning us both? Against the Shadow Vampire King himself? Would you take it?”

I stare at him with wide eyes. Adrenaline shoots through me.

Does he mean it?

“Fuck, yeah,” I reply, fervently. “But what could I do against a monster like that?”

Aurelius studies me with his cold gaze for a long moment.

Then he shakes his head. “Sleep.”

He pushes me onto my back, wrapping the velvet bedding around me.

Nobody has treated me this gently before, as if I’m as precious as emeralds and deserve to be treasured.

I lie, dazed and unsure.

Aurelius appears just as unsure about what he’s doing, patting too hard and making a show of building up the sides of the nest, before appearing to catch what he’s doing.

“I want to go outside now that you’re back,” I demand. “That’s okay, right? ”

Aurelius gestures at the ceiling of the tent and the drumbeat of rain.

“I’ve been trapped inside this one fucking tent for days,” I complain.

“Sorry that I’m not Kit; I can’t control the weather. Or is that it, Spark? You want to sneak out and visit the other pet who can?”

I turn my head pointedly away.

How does Aurelius do that? It’s like he can read my every forbidden thought.

“You told me that he could keep me company,” I point out.

Aurelius stands up, and instantly, I miss his closeness. “Not yet. He hasn’t been tamed. Can’t you accept that he’s the villain here? You haven’t congratulated me for finally defeating him. A rough bandit like him is unworthy to?—”

“I’ve been called unworthy all my life,” I say, sharply. “I don’t judge people and I don’t want them tamed .”

“Stay inside. Trust my word. And get some rest.” Aurelius stalks away from the bed and out of the tent again, trailing his sodden crimson cloak behind him like a weeping wound.

I’ll sleep for now.

But later, I have my secret escape route out of the back of the tent, and I will find the second pet.

Then I’ll work out a way to help us both escape.